Name:
Burning Hunger
Number: REI_080
Cost
(G/Y/R): 3/0/1
Type:
Strike
Stats: 5/5
Rarity: Uncommon
Trait: Guardian
Text:
"For each teamwork your opponent has in
play, +1 Force."
Flavor Text: "Sorry to crash your little
soiree, Yoh. Shall I have the Spirit of
Fire whip up a tasty batch of Trey and
Rio skewers? Medium rare."
Ummm...
I guess this week's theme is random
guardian strikes. Dan didn't give much
of an explanation when he chose them. We
start off the week with a card that's a
bit against the flow of a conventional
Guardian deck, in that it centers more
around Force and less around Intercept.
This
card rocks because:
-It
can pull off a relatively cheap 8 Force.
It
has the potential to be an outstanding 8
Force, given that your opponent has a
field full of teamworks.
This
card sucks because:
-It's
living proof that Zeke is gay.
-It's
traited to Guardian shaman.
-Without the effect, it's sort of
expensive.
-It's
not very useful in the decktype it's
restricted to.
-It's
highly situational.
Read
the flavor text. Now read it again.
Again. Now stop. Think about what you
just read. There you have it, definitive
proof that Zeke is a raging homosexual.
or at least the dub turned him into
one... What sort of a name is Zeke? And
what sort of straight male would be
caught dead, uttering the term "soiree"
as if it were casual speech? He
should've said "party" like a normal
person.
ANYHOW, this time, I'm mentioning the
trait restriction first, because it's
important here. It's restricted to
Guardian shaman, which is effectively
what kills this card. The rampantly
popular strategy with Guardians is to
use high intercept cards like Surgeon's
Implements and Smoldering Confidence,
combine them with cards that drop
intercept in favor of force, and create
generally amazing strikes.
This
card tries too hard to stand alone. The
5 intercept means that any form of
Conviction, No Quarter, Tao En, or even
Spirit of Fire makes it almost
completely unplayable in such a deck. On
top of this, without the effect kicking
in, three green and a red is a
horrendous cost for a 5/5.
Next,
you have to consider that two of the
three Guardian shaman have Soul
advantage-type. This means that they
will exceedingly likely be running
Desolate Screams, not to mention Zeke's
teamwork destruction signature movesets,
and all three could potentially run
Cleanse, as well. this means that in
most cases, this card would only be
run in a Jun deck. the problem with Jun
is that she has the worst pick of
teamworks for a Guardian deck. If a Jun
deck tries to run the Intercept > Force
strategy I covered earlier, she's
limited to Tao En, who can very easily
wreck this card.
On
top of all of this, even if you aren't
wrecking your opponent's teamworks,
there's no guarantee they'll have
teamworks out when you play this card.
Additionally, if they have Lililala in
play, it's simple to lower the force of
this strike by simply using her effect.
DANGER! Kids, don't try these combos at
home:
Ummm...
ummm... I'm drawing blanks here. Of
course, my big argument the entire time
has been that this card is ineffective
because it's traited to the one Strike
trait that really can't combo well with
it.
Zeke
has Big Bill to make it more playable...
though why Zeke would ever run Big Bill
is beyond me. Jun has the standard Body
stat boosters, as well as Lee Pai-Long,
but those pretty much combo well with
EVERYTHING.
Summary:
It's
a nice, solid card, but the effect isn't
very good, and the build just isn't
congruent with the goals of most
Guardian-style decks. It has a lot of
potential, but until some cards come out
that help it achieve that potential, I
can't see it getting much play. The cost
makes it terrible unless you have some
way of ensuring that the effect will
kick in.
Rating:
Constructed: 2.5/5
Sealed: 1.5/5
